SalesMax, which is offered as software-as-a-service, relies on Zilliant's proprietary Purchase Pattern Profiling system to identify accounts with the most untapped potential, to alert reps where there is significant loss in wallet-share, and to recover customer accounts that indicate signs of erosion.

"Defection is not an easy thing to see in B2B because it doesn't happen all at once," says Rafe VanDenBerg, general manager of sales effectiveness solutions at Zilliant. "It tends to happen over time when a competitor gets a foothold in a particular product category and uses that foothold to gain additional product categories."

SalesMax was designed for the B2B manufacturer, distributor, and industrial service company, organizations that "have a lot of moving parts [where it is] very difficult to get that customer-centricity," according to VanDenBerg. For instance, a sales rep can see what particular categories a customer is buying into, but doesn't have actionable insight into whether or not they're purchasing the same product from a competitor, VanDenBerg says. It becomes impossible for a rep to analyze every customer in a book of business.

"At Cooper Industries, our sales team is managing over 10,000 opportunities every month," said Greg Preuer, director of Cooper Industries, a user of SalesMax, in a statement. "It's challenging to keep track of each customer manually. With SalesMax, our team has gained visibility into opportunities worth over $25 million that we just couldn't see before."

Some of the highlights of the SalesMax offering include the following:

Access and delivery of opportunities-A Web-interfacing component sorts opportunities by sales territory, including specific states and geographies;

Integration with CRM and other tools sales reps use-Opportunities may be pushed into a salesperson's inbox as a task with the ability to set tasks; and

Optimization for mobile devices, like the iPad.

SalesMax places a customer-level opportunity in front of a rep who can then take action, eliminating the need for manual analysis or to push a BI portal through Salesforce. "We found that anything that didn't align with how a sales team already works was going to be very challenging to get them to adopt," VanDenBerg adds.